Right Back Then
by elixia13
Summary: Federal Agents come to Cascade, and Jim has a history with one of them. Looking into the past helps Jim and Blair move forward. X-Files crossover. Slash.


Right Back Then

Disclaimer: Jim and Blair belong to Pet Fly. Mulder and Skinner belong to 1013.

1. Mulder

Cascade, Washington. According to the briefs Scully handed me on the plane, Cascade just might have been as lucky as the X-Files division when it came to super-freaky wackos. Wonderful. Skinner sent us out here on an X-File so bogus even I wouldn't have asked for a 302 on it. Some bank president claimed his kid was an alien. And that's why he needed to gut the kid directly down the middle. Lovely. The insanity plea has been replaced with the alien plea.

Guess who's fault that was?

Anyway, there wasn't a chance that it had any cause beyond one man's unfortunate psychosis, but when a high-profile case goes the alien route, Fox Mulder is called to the scene along with his faithful sidekick Scully. At least I thought it would be easy, beyond the inherent horror of the case. Maybe Scully and I could even catch a Jags game before we had to fly back to DC.

So our first stop was the police precinct, where we would meet up with the detectives handling the case. We were dealing with the Major Crimes department, and Skinner said their captain, some guy named Banks, had a good track record dealing with the Seattle field office. But local guys are always pissed as hell about us Feds horning in on their cases. I wasn't exactly looking forward to a warm welcome.

2. Jim

"Look Jim. Rafe is going to take this Dr. Scully down to the morgue to do the autopsy, and you are going to take Agent Mulder to the crime scene and then to re-interview Jenkins. There are no options here. Do it."

Simon's growl was going lower into his chest, and that was just another sign that this was not a good day. Blair wasn't planning to come down to the station because he had to teach his own class plus fill in for a friend to pay back a favor. We still hadn't put a lid on the Jenkins case, this crazy bastard who had killed his own son. Problem was, Jenkins was a crazy rich bastard, so instead of closing the case, we had to get some damn feds in to make sure the guy's kid really wasn't an alien. Just in case.

I figured, if they had to be there, fine, that was fine with me, but I had better things to do that escort some stuffy suit around Cascade. Especially without Blair around. Damn.

"Fine, Simon, fine. I still don't see why the goddamn feds are being called in on this."

A sleepy monotone answered from behind me, "Neither do I really, but I'm hoping to catch a Jags game while I'm here."

With the usual bullpen crowd, plus at least half a dozen uniforms around for good measure, I hadn't heard the Feds enter the room. Simon glowered at me even harder, so I turned around to face the man who'd spoken. He was lanky, maybe an inch or so shorter than me. His hideously expensive suit hung off of him, so I couldn't really tell, but he didn't look too built. I tracked in on his face--awkward nose, soft hazel eyes. Familiar eyes. Where...?

"Know where I can score some tickets, detective?" He stuck out his hand, finally. "I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder and this is my partner, Dana Scully." He gestured to the petite, pretty redhead next to him, but I was hardly paying attention. Fox?!? Jesus, how many Fox Mulders could there be? And those eyes. A man could get lost in those eyes. I should know; I did.

I heard Simon muttering under his breath to me, "Jim, you zoning, man?" I roused myself and took Mulder's offered hand.

"Mulder. I'm Jim Ellison. Nice to meet you." I didn't even need to scan his eyes for recognition. After a couple of seconds, I felt his heart rate speed up and heard his slight gasp. He remembered.

I turned to his partner. "Agent Scully, hope your trip went well." I smiled to excuse myself and walked off towards the men's room, ignoring Simon's perplexed expression.

3. Mulder

All I could think was "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, God." Jim Ellison. From Cascade, Washington. Twenty years, man, almost twenty years, but I knew those eyes, those pale blue eyes that seemed to see everything. And then suddenly he was gone from the room.

I turned to see Scully shaking hands with a tall, youngish detective. Detective Rafe. He was going to take her to the morgue so she could look at this poor kid who was already cut up more than enough, according to the reports. Lucky for me, she was a little distacted by the local talent, so she didn't notice my private little panic attack beside her.

Their captain, Banks, is a damn tall man; it's not often I feel short. He nodded at me and told me to make myself comfortable until Ellison got back from wherever he'd gone. That was fine with me. I needed a minute. Some time to think about 1980, summer break, and this guy named Jim Ellison.

I was home for the summer after my first year at Oxford, and I was miserable. My mom seemed to have moved completely on with her life in the space of two semesters. My room had been turned into a solarium, and I'd been relegated to the lumpy bed in the guest room. I couldn't stay with my dad either. He was working in Washington on an extended basis, so his house was practically boarded up. The Vineyard, which hadn't seemed like that great a place to start off with, felt like provincial bloody hell after England.

My friends from high school--make that the guys I hung out with in high school--were all doing internships and stuff that their parents had got them for the summer. My dad, of course, wouldn't think of me long enough to do that. Either that or he figured I would embarrass him if his stuffy State Department friends met me. I took a few stabs at getting a job, but no one would hire me. Those staid New England jerks took one look at my earrings and my spiked up black hair, and their eyes glazed over.

But I was nearly 19, and my mom gave me plenty of money to keep me out of the house, so I didn't much care. I figured, like, fuck 'em, you know. No future. Fine with me. So I spent my days dragging my feet in my steel-toed boots, lurking around the beach, the arcade. I was much less trouble than I looked, really.

This one afternoon when I thought I was going to go out of my mind with boredom, I walked farther down the beach than I usually did. I just kept going, three, maybe four miles until I saw this kid sitting on a rock looking about as bored as I did. He looked about my size, my age.

I knew he'd heard me coming because he turned briefly to look, but he didn't acknowledge me beyond that. I didn't usually talk to people I didn't know, but I'd gotten better at it at university. I'd made some friends who didn't actually spurn me the moment we met, so that helped me become less shy. Plus, I figured even if this guy told me to shove off, it would at least be more interesting than the rest of the day so far.

I walked over towards him, kicking at the sand as I approached. "Hey, the ocean more interesting than usual today, or what?" The guy chortled and turned to me, fixing me with the gaze of his piercing blue eyes. He was like the prototype true-blue American kid or something. Sandy hair cut short in back, a little bit longer on top, angular face. He wore blue jeans and brown boots to my black and black, but his t-shirt was black like mine. Santana. Oh, man, I thought. They are so not The Clash.

But he smiled at me, and it was a nice kind of smile. "The Clash, man? They're no Santana." So I laughed, and he laughed. It was cool. He told me he was staying with his aunt whose house was back behind this stretch of beach. When I told him where I'd walked from, he asked me if I wanted to go get some burgers and beer. It was definitely cool.

We took his car--a '69 Jag, I couldn't believe it--and went to one of the taverns in town. Turned out he was eighteen like me, on break from Cascade University. The Jag, a sleek black machine, was a graduation present from his dad, but even so it didn't sound like he was any closer to his old man than I was to mine. Seemed he'd been shipped out to the East Coast to get him out of the way for a few months. Sounded familiar. Man, I thought, parents suck.

So I had a friend for the summer. That hadn't happened since I was a little kid and Sam and I would end up playing with kids who were on the Vineyard for vacation or whatever. Jim and I definitely didn't build any sand castles, though. Mostly we'd get together for some beers or I'd show him some of the cool places in the area--book stores and record stores where you could find better stuff than at the mall. He let me talk about all the weird things I was interested in--psychology, Kafka, the paranormal, how much I hated Reagan. Jim was usually pretty quiet, but he never told me to shut up, except when I got a little too rabid about Reagan.

I tried to talk him into letting me pierce his ear, but he wouldn't budge. Jim said he was in ROTC back in school, and they'd kick him out for doing something like that. I couldn't believe that he actually wanted to join the military. I tried to tell him about how bad the military-industrial complex was, how I was reading that it was a big conspiracy against the rest of the country, not to mention that the arms race was probably going to blow up the whole world before we turned 30.

He listened, but he just shrugged it off. He wanted to go into the Army so that he could prove himself and help people. He thought it was a place to really get things done. I thought I would rather die than work for the government.

4. Jim

I stood in a stall in the men's room for as long as I could, running my hands over my face and trying to calm down. I figured if I stayed much longer than five minutes, Simon would think I'd run out the back. I thought, okay, I can do this. Fox Mulder. Fox Mulder is an FBI agent! Oh, shit. That skinny punk-ass kid...was all grown up and almost forty, just like me. He'd lost the look, but I wouldn't bet that he'd lost the attitude, at least not all the way.

Twenty years ago, he was just about the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. I'd come from preppy Cascade University to Martha's Vineyard, bastion of Yankee boringness, and there was this kid in all black from his dyed hair to his painted fingernails to his engineer boots, walking around like that on the beach, no less! But I figured out pretty fast that he was smart and local and my best bet for finding something fun to do 3000 miles away from my friends.

He could talk my ear off, too. Almost as bad as Blair. Well, not bad, exactly. I kind of liked it then, and I don't mind it now. I mean, if Sandburg ever shut up, I would think I'd gone deaf. Thinking of Blair made me smile, but then I started to panic again. If he found out what had gone on with me and Mulder, he'd move out for sure. And Mulder never did know how to keep his mouth shut...unless I shut it for him.

Oh, man. I thought, maybe he had something going on with that pretty little partner of his and would leave it alone. Maybe Sandburg would be busy at the university until the whole case blew over. Yeah, and maybe Simon would start smoking bubblegum cigars. I gave in, shook some of the tension out of my body, and went out to get Mulder.

I walked into the bullpen to find him sitting at my desk going over some files. He was wearing glasses and pushing his hair out of his eyes in what was probably an unconscious gesture. He'd aged into quite an attractive man, and the looks he got from the women in the area echoed my own appreciation. Next to him, I felt like a balding, poorly-dressed city beat cop. Replace beat cop with detective, and that's pretty much what I am.

He caught me looking and raised his eyebrows in a "what's up?" gesture. I cocked my head towards the door and cleared my throat. "Let's go." He nodded, gathered up his files into his briefcase, and followed me out to the elevator. I felt his nervous energy jittering beside me, but he waited until we got to the truck to say anything.

"This is some truck, Jim," he dead-panned. "What ever happened to that Jag you had? Now that was a car."

"I sold it after graduation when I went into the Army. It's just as well, because my life is not kind to cars these days." I couldn't help but think of the Explorer's untimely demise, and what the Jag would have looked like after that kind of damage. Not good.

Mulder laughed, "I know what you mean. The rental agents start quaking when I walk in the door."

I laughed a little, too, at the image, but then I didn't really know what else to say. After a couple quiet minutes, Mulder spoke up again. "I know this is a weird thing, Jim, but it's good to see you again. Look at us! This is what twenty years does to a couple of guys, I guess."

"Hmmm," I replied, "your hair is a little lighter."

"Yours is a little, ah, less present, but you dress about the same."

"And you dress a hell of a lot better. No offense intended."

He just started laughing harder, his suit rumpling as he leaned over to catch his breath. "None taken, none taken. Seriously, you look good."

"So do you, Fox."

"Jimmy."

"Wait until you meet my partner, Blair Sandburg. He'll talk your ear off about the ceremonial and historical significance of foxes in worldwide cultures, or something like that." I had to grin, thinking of the lecture fodder that would give Sandburg.  
Mulder groaned. "This from a cop?"

"No, well, Blair's a doctoral student in anthropology, actually. He works with the department as an observer, and he ended up with me." I hate having to give this explanation to people. I know it sounds a little kooky, but it's better than the truth.

Mulder's interest was piqued. "That's pretty unusual. You have a civilian partner?"

"He's a good guy, really. Besides, no one else would have me and I, uh, needed the back-up."

Mulder nodded. "Does he carry a weapon? How does that work?"

"No, he's got an observer pass, but he can't carry. You'd be, surprised, though, he's small but deadly. I wouldn't have anyone else back me up."

Mulder nodded sagely. "Be careful, man. Those small ones get mad enough, they'll take you out. Believe me, I know from experience." He smirked at me, rolling his left shoulder like it was suddenly stiff.

"Lover's quarrel?" I framed it as a joke, with a comic leer, but I really wanted to know.

"Ah, no. Not that she's not attractive. We just...no." He seemed pretty definite on the subject. I just nodded.

"How in the hell did you end up assigned to this case, anyway? You've seen the evidence; there's no doubt what happened. This sick bastard killed his kid. The only reason the case is still open is that he's rich."

"No, actually, the only reason is that he cried 'alien.'"

"So he's crazy. What does that have to do with the FBI?"

"Well, nothing, if it were up to me." He sighed deeply. "Look, Jim. My partner and I comprise a small department within the Bureau dedicated to investigating crimes of a more unusual nature. I've seen some freaks of nature that you would not believe."

I briefly pondered letting him know that he was sitting next to another one, but I didn't much like the idea of my name showing up in FBI files. He seemed like the kind of person I might want to tell one day, but not right then. "Oh, I might if I saw the evidence."

"Yeah, maybe. Anyway, some of our investigations are into crimes that appear to have a connection with extraterrestrial biological entities."

"English?"

"Aliens."

"Ah. But this isn't--"

"I know. There were no aliens here--not unless Scully tells me that kid has green blood."

"It was red. I saw plenty of it." I could still almost smell it. The coppery tang washing over my senses until I could dial the smell down far enough. That little boy was cut stem to stern.

He winced. "Sorry. In any case, I've come to be seen as Alien Boy by the powers that be. This isn't the only case I've been called out on where simple human nastiness fits the bill better than little gray men. I've come to look at it as a way to see basketball in far-flung cities."

"You're a piece of work, Mulder."

"So I'm told."

By then we had arrived at the Jenkins' 9-bedroom estate, complete with circular drive, swimming pool and blood-stained carpet. I didn't feel the need to look at it again, so I waited in the Jenkins' sitting room and tried to figure out what was going on. That flirtation in the truck had me more confused than I cared to be. Oh, and I knew it was flirtation. I heard his heart rate speeding up under all that Italian wool. I felt his body heat rise a notch, and it was plenty cool in the truck. No question he was flirting with me. The only question was, what would I do?

I knew what I wanted to do. I was fully capable of monitoring my own physical responses, Sentinel senses or not.

That summer, back in 1980, we'd been hanging around regular for about a month, just drinking beer and shooting hoops, whatever there was to do out on that quiet little island. We were at a bar one night, and some girls were hitting on us hard. They thought they were pretty cute, and I guess they were alright, but neither of us really paid them much attention.

"I don't know," I mused, "maybe I should let one of them kiss me."

Mulder made a face. "Oh, man, they're pretty skanky. You'll end up with herpes or something from those girls."

"W-well, uh, it's my birthday. Isn't a guy supposed to get kissed on his birthday?"

"Well, in that case, I think we can find someone else better than them to kiss you."

"Yeah, who?" I gestured around the semi-dark bar.

He cocked an eyebrow and smirked at me. I blushed hot over my summer tan. "Let's go down to the water. I bet we can find someone there."

We chugged the rest of our beers and headed out the door. I was conscious of the girls frowning in our direction, but I didn't much care. I followed Mulder down the sandy grass path to the beach, and when we got to the bottom he grabbed my arm and pulled me around so my back was to the dune.

"Is it really your birthday, Jim?" His voice had dropped a register from it's usual tone.

"July 11. That's me." I felt almost out of breath, my heart pounding in my throat.

"Happy birthday, then." He put one surprisingly soft hand on my cheek then and leaned in to kiss me. His lips were warm and full, and he gently pushed mine open, venturing his tongue inside. I moaned at the feeling and reached a hand behind his head, pulling him in closer. I slid my tongue over his, and then his was over mine again.

I shuddered with pleasure, and the dune behind me was the only thing holding me up. I'd kissed girls back in Cascade, but never had it been like this. For starters, there was no leaning down, no crick in my neck. We were almost the same height, and he was strong, even if I was stronger. And the kissing was just different. His mouth was claiming mine, dominating me in a way that I never thought could feel this good.

Finally we broke apart, and we were both flushed and panting. "You like your birthday present, Jim?"

"Oh...wow," was the sum total of my eloquent response. He took that as a yes and moved in toward my mouth again. This time, I took him by the waist, and turned him around so that his back was to the dune this time. I wanted to show him that I could give as good as I got. I plundered his mouth, pulling his body close to mine, where he had only leaned in towards me. I could feel him hard underneath his jeans, and my own reaction was nothing less.

We could have gone farther. I wanted to go further, and he, clearly, was ready willing and able. But then we heard some other kids making their way down the path to the beach. I could hear the clink of bottles in a cooler, laughter--female and male. We pulled apart hastily and found another path up to the road.

I dropped him off at his house that night, and I could hardly drive for the hormones flowing through me. He seemed to have withdrawn, though, and in retrospect he was probably worried about what I was going to do or say. When he turned to get out of the car, I reached for his wrist and held him back a moment.

He looked at me with warring measures of hope and fear in his eyes. I told him, "Thanks. That, well, that was the best birthday present anyone ever gave me." He smiled and ducked his head, shy again after his rush of bravery by the dunes. I watched him enter the dark house, and I wanted him more than anything else in the world.

5. Mulder

For all my profiling ability, I hope I never truly understand what moves people to do evil to children. That crime scene, that once-lovely bedroom with solid, expensive furniture, trendy bedding, Sega system, stereo, all the trappings of well-off childhood in the nineties, looked more like a meat district warehouse than the catalog-layout it was designed to emulate.

Whatever horror invaded my childhood home, it was neater than this, more self-contained. Appearances were maintained. Anything else could happen, as long as the carpet wasn't ruined. I had to shake off the mood, the memories. If the boy had still been alive, if the killer had been at large, I would have turned myself inside out to find them. As it was, there was nothing I could do for either one of them. Children are murdered every day; I'd met Jim once after twenty years. Live my life and then tell me my priorities were out of whack.

When I came downstairs, I saw Jim sitting in a wing-backed chair in the sitting room, and I happened to notice that the chair wasn't the only thing that was stiff. He looked up at me, and I think his erection flagged guiltily when he remember what I'd been looking at. In the midsts of death we are in life. Oh, yeah. I imagine I can guess what he was thinking of.

Jim drove me silently back to the station, where I interviewed George Jenkins, former bank president and future asylum resident. He informed me that his wife had been taken by aliens and that his son had been replaced with an alien imposter. He knew that if he killed the imposter, the aliens would know he was on to them and send his family back. His wife, in fact, had died from breast cancer four months previous, and his young son had been showing behavioral problems in school ever since.

When reality failed to meet this man's standards, his mind sought out another world to inhabit. I thanked him for talking to me and wished him luck. He was too pathetic to hate. Jim and I used the empty interview room to talk once Jenkins was taken away again. I told him what I thought about the case, and he agreed, though he seemed frustrated. It's easier to think of people like Jenkins as evil than to realize they're simply deluded, sick and terribly sad.

We were quiet for a few minutes, going over notes, finishing off paperwork. I called up Scully, and she confirmed that the autopsy was completely normal. No implants, no green pustules in his neck, nothing unusual in any way--excepting, of course, the method of death.

I turned back to Jim. "Well, this is wrapped up tight. Scully and I are heading back to DC tomorrow afternoon. Jim, I..."

"Yeah?" He prompted quietly. My heart was pounding, and I felt like he could hear it.

"I'm sorry I never wrote. I should have written. I saw it in the papers, when you came back from Peru."

"Shit, Mulder, I--"

"I'm sorry, Jim. I didn't mean to bring it up; it must have been a shitty thing. But I--I saw that, and it meant something to me. I was going through hell at the Bureau at the time. I was profiling, and I was good at it. If I'd kept going at it, I'd have ended up crazier than that poor bastard Jenkins. My former boss lives his life in four-point restraints; it's not a pretty job.

"I was, I don't know, shocked out of my horrible little rut by hearing about what you went through. I pulled every string I could grab and got myself a transfer that let me open up my own division. It certainly hasn't been all roses since then, but not having to live in the minds of serial killers helps. Helps a lot."

Jim exhaled loudly. "Yeah, I guess it would. I think I'm glad I just have to chase them down, sniff them out. Nobody asks me to be anyone other than Jim Ellison. And I guess I'm glad hearing about me did something good for you. It was a bad time, but I've come to peace with it pretty much. You're going to think this is crazy, but I couldn't even remember what I did for my months down there. Not for the longest time."

Oh, repressed memory. No stranger to the Mulder world. "No, it's not crazy. We repress what we can't deal with. You're lucky it came back to you."

"I never repressed what we did that summer. I never--I should have written, too. How many Fox Mulders could there be in the phone book, you know?"

I got up and walked over to the small, dirty window in the interview room. "Don't worry about it. I didn't come home from England much for the next few years after that summer, and then I went straight into the Bureau. For a long while then, I wasn't much good as a friend to anyone. God knows why I even tried, but I had a miserable failure of a marriage."

I turned in surprise when Jim snorted briefly behind me. "You too, eh? I feel bad for her, really, because I didn't want to be there, and I didn't even do a good job of fooling myself." He stood up and walked over towards me. "What about--did you ever have anything with another man?"

"Nothing that meant anything. Nothing that wasn't just another method of self destruction when the others had failed." I sounded so bitter and old to myself, so very much not eighteen. And then Jim Ellison was touching my cheek and kissing me.

It was...nice. I liked feeling strong arms on my shoulders, a well-muscled back underneath my hands, tipping my head up just a little to meet him, but it was just--just kissing. There was no spark. He was starting to pull back from me when the door opened, and a guy with long curly hair bounded into the room with Jim's name on his lips.

He was younger, maybe not quite thirty, and his eyes were wide, his mouth open wider. Jim leapt back from me like his mother had caught him in the act. "Sandburg--" he started, but the guy just shook his head a little and then look at me. Well, "looked" is a mild word.

"Never mind, Jim. See you at home." And the he was out the door, nothing left behind him but the slap of the shutting door.

Jim's hands went up to his face. "Oh, crap."

I was feeling more idiotic every second. "Jim, you should have told me. I didn't know you were involved."

Still talking from behind his hands, Jim moaned, "We are not involved, I swear to you, Mulder."

Um, yeah. "'See you at home, Jim?' What in the hell is that all about if you're not involved?"

Jim's hands dropped to his sides, but his eyes stayed closed, and his jaw was doing this impressive popping movement. He reminded me of Skinner there for a moment, working his jaw up so tight you think he'll need a straw to eat. "He's my roommate. He moved in after his apartment was blown up, and he just never left. Oh, crap! Sandburg is definitely straight. He's on the ladies like cold on snow. I'm sure he'll move out now."

He sounded devastated. "And you'll miss him, Jim?" I asked, unobtrusively.

"Yeah."

"You love him."

"Yes, yes, but like I told you, he would never--"

I was starting to feel smug. "He would." I had to resist the urge to rock back on my heels.

"Excuse me? You don't even know him. This," he waved his hand around in the air to indicate the messy situation, "hardly even qualifies as meeting him."

"Yeah, but he gave me the look of death, Jim. The touch-my-boyfriend-again-and-die look."

"He did not." He didn't want to let himself believe me, but I saw hope opening up in his eyes.

"He did. And, you know, this between us," I gestured to us standing together, "it wasn't right. It was right back then--it was so right--but I think I know now why this wasn't."

"And where did you get your psychology degree, Mulder?"

Oh, yeah, smug was coming on. "Oxford."

"Right, Oh, shit."

"At least I think I can diagnose our attraction."

"Oh, please do, Mulder." Those icy blue eyes swept over to me.

"You have a thing for moody Jewish-type guys with run-on mouths."

"So that's me in a nutshell? What about you?"

Of course it had to come around to me. "I have an attraction to strong, quiet military types with a marked lack of hair." Not to mention a history of surviving under impossible conditions and a capacity for bravery and goodness beyond the norm.

"And my doppelganger would be who?" He was a good interegator; I could tell that.

I sighed and looked away, but it was good to tell somebody, somebody utterly removed from the Bureau, from DC. "Assistant Director Walter Skinner. My boss. Never to be."

"Never is a long time, Mulder." He twitched, trying to keep his eyes from the door Sandburg had run out of. "Anyway, I guess I really need to go after him. Explain, in any case. I don't know what else." He pulled a card out of his back pocket and wrote on it for a moment. "My home number's on here, Mulder, and so is my e-mail address. Drop me a line, okay?"

I nodded, and he darted out the door towards his fate. I slumped against the tile wall of the interview room and collected myself to go meet Scully. I had promised her a nice dinner for this trip, and I wasn't about to renege.

6. Blair.

I'm thirty years old. I thought I knew myself--my motivations and my feelings. I've always considered myself an introspective person. Naomi taught me to do this; to find the quiet place inside that is me. To keep my soul there where it can be safe. I've known Jim Ellison for three years, and I thought I understood our relationship. It was simple, but kind; close, but delineated. I thought I liked where the lines were.

Maybe I've never really known either of us at all.

Women. I love women, and I always have. Oh man, with their legs up to here and their chests out to there and...woah. Women are fun and distracting and sexy, and I've enjoyed myself with more of them than I'd care to recount. In the morning, though, I've never been satisfied, quite. I'm always a little disappointed, ready to move on.

I don't blame them; it's me. I clearly have trouble committing myself to anyone. I took just enough psych classes to be able to attribute that to everything from my nomadic youth to my lack of a father figure. I've studied enough human societies to be able to attribute it to the socialization of boys in American society, attention-span shortening entertainment, and radon in basements, not necessarily in that order.

In the end, I never figured it mattered. I was happy most of the time. The women seemed happy enough to go out with me, and the offers never ran dry. With no exclusive relationship, I had more time to devote to my career at the university. I had the freedom to fly off to Fiji for four months with no regrets. I had the perfect right to be Blair Sandburg, accomplished, brilliant young hippie flake.

I've always believed that there was one right person out there for me and that I would be willing to settle down to be with that person. What I never figured was that the one person would be Jim Ellison. Yes, almost since the beginning, I've cared about him. I've been willing to put his own well-being above mine. I've wanted to go wherever he goes just so we can work together. These are the hallmarks of love, but I never saw it.

I had already given up my footloose lifestyle and settled down in one place to be with him. I had already let him get closer to me than anybody besides my mother had ever been. I had already been closer to him than I'd ever been to a woman. But I never saw it.

I never saw it until it smacked me right between the eyes in the form of a visiting FBI agent forming a lip lock with my partner. It became very clear to me the moment I walked so carelessly through that door. I realized that I loved Jim, as a friend, but as more than a friend. Like a partner. Like a lover. Like forever.

What's worse is that I realized I'd loved him like that all along. I thought back to every single time we'd touched. When things were good, okay even, him touching me made me happy--terribly happy and giddy. When things were bad, when he was hurt or I was hurt, his touch was the one thing that kept the whole world from falling apart.

The time with the Golden--most of that is really unclear to me. I remember how I felt--terrified, horrified, confused, and I remember how his arms felt around me. Everything was loose at the time, disjointed, crumbling, and his arms held me together. I felt this to be a physical thing at the time--that if he let me go I would literally crumble apart into burning embers on the floor.

When I saw him with that man, Fox Mulder, in his arms, I felt that again for a moment. A searing pain in my chest. I turned and ran, and didn't stop until I got to my car, where I could have my little breakdown in private. Plates were shifting in the earth, reality was reorganizing itself in my head.

One thing I have on my side is that the gay thing doesn't faze me at all. I always thought I was straight--yeah, never been particularly attracted to a man--but I had nothing against the concept. I had never in my life considered being homophobic. My mom had gay friends, and when I went to college, more of my friends were gay or bi than were straight. I was cool with that. Just, I thought I was straight. Straight but not narrow, all that. It's like the way I feel about fruit mixed with chocolate--I'm sure it's delicious and you go ahead and enjoy it. I just don't care for any myself.

Until this great big chocolate covered cherry of a Jim slipped into my consciousness, and I plucked him out of the box not even knowing what I'd taken.

It disturbs me some to realize that my feelings all along were not what I thought them to be. I wonder, worryingly, if it cheapens our friendship to know that all along, some part of me was lusting after him. I don't think so, though, because it doesn't feel so much like lust as it does like love. If he would only allow me to, I could love him better than anyone ever has. And if he doesn't, I'll love him anyway. He never has to know.

7. Mulder

The next day, I got up early and went for a run in the damp Cascade morning. I had a lot to think about, and it's easier for me to think with the thud of my feet marking things out evenly. So much to think about: Jim, Skinner, my past, my future. If I keep running, I feel like I'm never quite in the present. The present is a stationary phenomenon, so if you don't stand still it can't trap you.

I felt better, clearer, when I got back to the hotel. On my way to the elevator, I heard the desk clerk call my name. "Mr. Mulder?"

I headed back in her direction. "Yeah?"

She held a white business-size envelope out to me. "This came for you a little while ago."

I thanked her and took it into the elevator with me. Inside was a note and two tickets to the Jags game that night. Damn good tickets. I read the note, grinning to myself.

"Mulder-- I hope you and your partner can stay an extra night and use these tickets. Blair and I can't use them tonight, as we'll be occupied with making up for the last couple of years, if you know what I mean. And remember, never is a long time. You were always the kind of guy to take chances, so think about it. We repressed military types have a great deal of tolerance for you mouthy, smart-assed types. Jim"

I folded up the note and tucked it in my pocket. I wanted the tickets convenient for gleeful brandishing in Scully's direction. I made a quick deal with myself: If the Jags win, I'll talk to Skinner. I'll talk to Skinner.

8. Jim

Having dropped off my envelope at the hotel for Mulder, I happily returned to the loft, fresh bagels and coffee in hand. As soon as I entered, I could smell traces of our activities last night. The smell of Blair loving me--I'd like to bottle it. I could hear his heart beat, slow and steady with sleep, from the loft above me instead of from his downstairs bedroom. I could hear the gentle snuffling of his breath against my pillow. As I quietly walked up the stairs with food and coffee in tow, I could see him sprawled naked on my sheets, his gorgeous hair splayed behind him.

What can I say? The other two senses needed to be satisfied. I quickly pulled my clothes off again and slid into the bed next to Blair. Next to my lover. I let one hand slide down his surprisingly well-muscled back, over the soft curve of his ass. He stirred, opened one sleepy blue eye to peer at me and smiled.

"Hey babe, come here." He reached up for me to get closer. New item on my list of favorite things: Blair's voice, smoky and low in the morning. I let him pull me into his arms, and I dipped down to satisfy the fifth clamoring sense. Taste.

I ran my tongue up from the hollow of his throat, sampling the saltiness of sweat and unplaceable Blair-taste, before moving on to his mouth, with traces of myself still there for me to discover. Nothing could ever be this sweet.

"God, Blair, I love you so much."

"So maybe I don't have to kill that Mulder guy, huh?"

"That would definitely be unnecessary, Chief. You've got me for as long as you want me--"

"That would be forever."

"Forever, then, and he's going all the way back to DC where he's got his own big, bald, buff fish to fry."

"Good. That's fine. You, however, are mine."

"You're cute when you're jealous, you know that? But think about it: when Mulder and I were together, you were 11. Adorable as I'm sure you were in sixth grade, it was only slightly impossible."

Blair laughed then, the vibration warming my chest. "Actually I was a total dork. I kept trying to grow my hair long, but it just kept growing out until I had this wide, curly mass of hair. It looked like a 'fro, and I really wasn't trying for the disco look."

"Come on, Chief. Light-up shoes were the ultimate accessory."

"Don't even go there, man. Do I smell coffee?"

"You do indeed." I levered myself up to reach over him for the bag I'd left in the floor. I sat up against the back of the bed, and Blair nestled himself into my arms. Cuddled together like that, we munched on our bagels--honey wheat for him, cinnamon raisin for me--and sipped our rich French-roast coffee.

I know on my part it had been a conscious effort to keep away from him for the past couple of years, to keep from touching those soft curls, to stop myself from rubbing a hand on his stubbled chin. I allowed myself to touch him only when one of us was in pain or in jeopardy, only when I could excuse it as an excess of simple friend-like emotion.

To touch him then, when for all intents and purposes all was right in our worlds, was pure heaven. I planned to spend all week-end in the loft, doing pretty much nothing but touching him with love and joy and new discovery.

I truly hope that everything works out for Mulder. I really don't know that much about Mulder, the man, but I think he deserves some happiness and love. Even when we were boys, there was sadness in his eyes, but now, it's more. It's layered, somehow, and I hate to think of the years that put those layers there.

I came out of my reverie to find Blair done with breakfast but intent on doing a little more eating. As I felt his mouth move down over my chest, his hands moving ahead down my hips, I must admit that all thoughts of my friend Mulder fled from my mind.

THE END


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